Planetary nebula. Hubble space telescope image of the M2-9 bipolar planetary nebula,with its 2 pro- minent gas jets. Neutral oxygen is red,singly- ionized nitrogen is green & doubly-ionized oxygen is blue. The jets occur because of a huge ring of gas (not seen here) around the 2 stars at the centre of M2-9. The ring channels gas ejected from the stars at over 320 kilometres per second like the nozzle of a jet engine. M2-9 lies 2100 light years away in the Opiuchus constellation and was formed by a stellar outburst which occurred about 1200 years ago. Image taken by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 on 2 August 1997 | |
Licence : | Droits gérés |
Crédit: | Science Photo Library / B.BALICK, U.WASHINGTON / STSCI / ESA / NASA |
Taille de l’image : | 4159 px × 2480 px |
Model Release : | Non requis |
Property Release : | Non requis |
Restrictions : | - |